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For some organizations, managing as many as 20,000 cases a month can present a serious challenge. PharmPro Inc., in contrast, needed a case-management system capable of handling well over 20,000 cases a day. The answer? i-Sight Case Management Software from Customer Expressions, the leader in customizable, web-based software for business processes that require case management.

“As a rapidly growing company, we needed a case management solution that could grow with us,” says Mark Steltz, founder and president of PharmPro Inc. of Upland, PA. “i-Sight has been a blessing for us. It provides exactly what we need to manage our workflow intelligently and efficiently.”

The Challenge:

A full-service pharmacy staffing and consulting firm, PharmPro provides flexible temporary and permanent job placement for pharmacy professionals in all areas of pharmacy practice. The company is also a leading innovator in remote order entry services and off-site pharmacy support with its e-PharmPro services and suite of solutions. Established in 2002, e-PharmPro allows hospitals to outsource their pharmacy needs during off-peak hours at a fraction of the cost of staffing an overnight shift.

From the client’s perspective, e-PharmPro is designed to be both simple to use and seamless. Nurses who need to have prescriptions filled can submit their orders exactly the same way they would if the on-site pharmacy was open. Calls or faxes are automatically re-routed to a dedicated e-PharmPro line staffed by a live pharmacist. Once the order has been entered into the e-PharmPro database, a queuing system ensures that each prescription is referred promptly to a pharmacist who is both licensed to practice in that hospital’s state and experienced in that hospital’s areas of clinical specialty. The pharmacist can then evaluate the prescription, log in to the hospital’s computer system and, if appropriate, provide the necessary approvals to allow the medication to be dispensed.

When PharmPro launched its remote prescription verification service three years ago, it was using a homegrown queuing system to ensure that each order was reviewed promptly and accurately by a qualified pharmacist. By the fall of 2005, however, the company had grown to the point where it made sense to look for a more robust and scalable case management solution. “On average, we are adding about 80 new hospitals a month,” Steltz explains, adding that each hospital submits between 50 and 100 prescriptions a night for review.

“It got to the point where it was obvious we needed a new queuing system to handle the growth,” Steltz says. In addition, “There were a few other features we wanted to have, such as the ability to keep track of the number of cases where one of our pharmacists has noticed a problem with a prescription and has intervened to correct an error. We had been keeping manual records of interventions, but it made more sense to do it electronically so that we could generate reports for our customers and demonstrate to our customers that we are providing them with quality healthcare.”

The solution:

Steltz evaluated several different case management and queuing systems before selecting i-Sight Case Management Software from Customer Expressions. “One of the things that impressed me most about the i-Sight team is that they run their own servers and do all the programming,” he says. “When I saw what they had done for their other clients, I could see right away that they had the technical expertise to design a solution that would meet our requirements.”

As the project unfolded, Steltz was struck by the enthusiasm and resourcefulness of the Customer Expressions team. “Most of the time, when you’re dealing with vendors and you need something done quickly, it’s like pulling teeth,” he says. “Working with Customer Expressions, though, was nothing like that. When I explained what we were doing and what we needed, they immediately came back and said, ‘Great – let’s do it.’ I told them I needed it by a certain date and they just went ahead and did it. I really appreciated their energy and their commitment to customer service.”

Steltz also appreciates the fact that i-Sight is a hosted software application: instead of running on a local server, the entire solution is installed, configured and managed remotely by the professionals at Customer Expressions. And because the software is web-based and secure, e-PharmPro has the freedom to locate its facilities wherever it makes good business sense. As Steltz puts it, “The fact that i-Sight is hosted represents a huge benefit for us. Right now we have a hub in Harrisburg, PA, but in the near future we plan to open a second hub in Wilkes-Barre, PA. As we continue to grow and open up new hubs, our pharmacists can log in from wherever they happen to be.”

Steltz says he can foresee a time when e-PharmPro will have “as many as 500 pharmacists and seven hubs and all sorts of clinical people working from remote locations. One of the advantages with i-Sight, he adds, is that if the system has to be updated, “it can be done centrally and everybody on the system will get it instantaneously,” rather than having to install new software at each location.

The bottom line? “i-Sight is extremely flexible and adaptable to our requirements,” Steltz says. “It has given us the additional capabilities we need and allows us to handle much greater volumes.”

Based in Ottawa, Canada, Customer Expressions is a leading provider of web-based case management solutions for regulators and enterprises focused on quality assurance and customer service. Customer Expressions has gained an international reputation for best-in-class software that enables managers to improve customer retention and profitability. The privately held firm provides i-Sight, an integrated solution for complaint handling, corrective and preventive action management (CAPA Management), compliance monitoring and other business processes that require case management.